How To Bypass The HR Department -- And Get The Job

I've been an HR leader since 1984 so I am not the first person one would expect to recommend that job-seekers avoid the HR department when they're job-hunting.

However, that is what they must do if they want to avoid having their resume and/or job application lost in the Black Hole!

Watch on Forbes:

HR is a vital department in any organization if it is run well. Sadly however, the recruiting process in almost every medium-sized and large employer is broken, and has been broken for years.

Job-seekers know it. Hiring managers know it. HR people know their recruiting system is broken, too, but they either have too much else going on or don't feel they have enough political capital to bring up the issue with senior management.

That's a shame because a broken recruiting system will trash your employer brand first and eventually make it impossible for you to hire great people.

When it becomes easier and faster to start generating income on an independent consulting basis than by applying to work for your company, why would the most marketable candidates stick around in a broken, insulting recruiting pipeline?

They will get a box of business cards for ten bucks and starting grabbing consulting gigs, working a week here and two weeks there if necessary. They will not wait for your wheels of bureaucracy to turn — and who can blame them?

Because most organizations hire new employees in the worst possible way — by matching the keywords in a resume to the keywords in their job ads — you cannot rely on HR to get you an interview, or even to respond once you've completed their application process.

Luckily there is a better way to get hired. You don't even have to wait for a department manager to post a job ad. You can create a Target Employer List and use that list to get your next job.

Once you know which twenty, thirty or forty employers you want to go after first, you can begin to conduct research to find out what you need to know about each organization:

1. What is their business all about?

2. Which department in the organization would you be most likely to work for, based on their business and your talents?

3. What type of Business Pain is your hiring manager inside each organization likely to be facing, based on what you're learning about the organization and its industry?

4. What types of Business Pain do you solve, or have you solved in past jobs?

5. What is the name of the specific department manager in each organization who would be most likely to hire you?

LinkedIn, Google and the organization's own website will help you find a name and title for the person you want to reach — potentially work for — in each firm. You can learn a lot about the organization before you start writing with a few minutes of concentrated research time.

You can find each organization's mailing address on its website. Now you can write directly to each hiring manager on your list, by name.

Your letter will reach them at their desk if the mail room folks don't toss it. Could that happen? Of course! If you don't hear anything back after sending off your first Pain Letter, you can change the date on the letter and send it again a week or two weeks later.

Your Pain Letter doesn't sound like a traditional cover letter. It is written just for one recipient — the person who might become your next boss. Your Pain Letter talks about him or her and their issues — not about you.

You can send out a Pain Letter or two every day. You can read job ads if you want to, but if you respond to them reply with a Pain Letter instead of by submitting an online application.

HR folks are awesome people but you cannot let them control your job search. They have too much to do. They cannot champion your cause the way you can.

As a job-seeker these days you must flex in ways that are new to most of us. You must get a business card of your own, apart from any business card your employer has given you. We are all consultants now.

We can find work and slip through keyholes and step into our power — and the muscles that we grow stepping out of the traditional job-search methodology and mindset are the most important muscles we can build in this new millennium.